If you've ever had any of the various Pillsbury "bread" doughs, you've probably noticed that they all taste pretty much the same. Dinner rolls, crescent rolls, "Italian" bread, Rustic French bread, biscuits, you name it - Pillsbury does some pretty amazing things with textures (varying the flakiness of the rolls and making some of the breads denser than others, for example) but when you get right down to it and taste it, the basic flavor is identical right across the line.
So you can probably imagine that I didn't have very high expectations for Pillsbury Rustic French Bread. I don't care what the advertising says or how attractive the picture on the package is. It's still going to taste like something out of a bursting paper tube. And I was right. Totally unimpressive - you can get the same effect from not separating a bunch of dinner rolls and baking them in one long cylinder. Not "rustic" at all, and certainly not "French."
And therefore, for my second tube of Rustic French Bread, I thought I'd try something different. I make salami, pepperoni, and sausage breads all the time (using genuine yeast bread from a fairly standard yeast bread recipe) and somehow I got it into my head that maybe the rather "meh" Pillsbury Rustic French Bread could be made better by going beyond the usual.
I started out by removing the Pillsbury dough from the tube and spreading it out on a work surface. I found that Simply dough is every bit as sticky as non-Simply Pillsbury stuff, so I spread it out on a sheet of baking parchment.
With the dough spread out, I added a single layer of Genoa salami. and then rolled the dough up into a loaf with the salami spiraled in the middle.
Here's the dough, all rolled up with a few slashes cut into it for venting. I transferred the loaf onto a baking sheet and put it into the oven.
And here's the final product, out of the oven all nicely browned and looking totally nommable.
You know what it tasted like? Cheap and crappy Pillsbury dough with salami inside. It was really lousy.
I dunno. Pillsbury's quick breads certainly have their place - I enjoy the dinner rolls and "biscuits" occasionally. But I guess I'm just less than enthusiastic about using Pillsbury breads for stuff like "rustic French bread" or pizza dough.
3 comments:
Happy New Year ! Looking forward to reading your posts/reviews through out 2012
Forced to drastically limit bread intake due to the carbohydrates within.
In the past, every once in a great while, I would grab some biscuits in a can, whatever was cheap, and toss them in the oven with generally decent outcomes.
Good enough for me.
At times I would make some white gravy using powdered mix and turn raw ground-up dead cow into cooked ground-up deceased cow and add to the white gravy.
Pour atop biscuits and slurp it in.
That was when I was in advanced cooking mode.
Sometimes hot biscuits and cheap margarine was all that was used.
Never tried an entire loaf of bread, though.
Pondering, I wonder if the presence of salami hampered or altered the baking process?
In the old days I ould grab a pre-made long and wide roll and place mayo, salami and cheese atop and heat it until the cheese dribbles, the salami heated and the roll semi-crispy but not hard.
Yummy!!!!
But, over time, my taste sense has been altered and MANY of the foods I once slavered over either do not taste good any more or are actually repugnant to me!!!!!
Interestingly, the foods that are the least healthiest for various reasons are the ones that tend to be the repulsive ones.
Sob.
Sigh.
Nature's way to prepare one for their eventual demise? For death to be a release?
But, there ARE still a few foods that make my liver quiver with delight.
Hehe, I totally know what you mean! My mom has an appetizer recipe that calls for Pillsbury French Bread dough wrapped around Brie (sprinkled with dried cranberries, brown sugar and maple syrup), but I wanted to substitute homemade bread so I was looking online to see how the Pillsbury bread is supposed to taste. Your post was very helpful :) I am now more confident that making the dough from scratch is the way to go for me. Thanks very much for the laughs also!
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